Metering.com - A Week in Smart Metering

Metering.com wants to know your predictions for the smart metering world in 2015.

Published: Mon 08 Dec 2014

As the year draws to a close, we want to know what you think are the winds of change blowing through the smart metering industries.

What are your predictions for the utility sector in 2015? And how positive do you feel about what the new year brings?

Add your comments to the Big Question - and we’ll feature a round-up in the next issue of Metering & Smart Energy International.

More from Metering.com

Smart meter fires: Sensus payout ‘horrible’ deal for utility customersIn Canada, opposition political party NDP is attempting to make political gains by declaring electric utility SaskPower’s recall deal with Sensus “horrible”. The NDP said that SaskPower’s chief financial officer revealed on Monday night that if the government doesn’t install Sensus smart meters on Saskatchewan homes again, it will lose $18 million from the compensation package.

The UK’s smart meter rollout will top a meeting of the Energy and Climate Change Committee being held in Parliament today.According to the meeting agenda, the purpose of the session is to evaluate progress in the smart meter roll-out since the Committee’s inquiry in May 2013, to look at emerging challenges during the foundation phase, and determine the remaining challenges ahead of the 2020 dead.

UK energy supplier First Utility is calling on Smart Energy GB, the organization charged with engaging customers with smart meters, to postpone its national advertising campaign in line with delays to the countrywide rollout.Smart Energy GB is set to launch in 2015 a GBP25 million advertising programme that includes thecartoon characters Gaz and Leccy. First Utility is reportedly worried that the campaign “will heighten demand before the technology is widely available”, reports Utility Week.

In East Africa, utility Kenya Power has earmarked US$1.6 million for a two-year smart meter pilot in a bid to cut operating and distribution costs.The state electric company will deploy smart meters to up-scale residential and small commercial customers who have monthly power bills over US$1,110 in and around the capital Nairobi, reports local media.

In Spain, the National Commission for Markets and Competition is pushing for consumers with smart meters to benefit from hourly wholesale power prices from April 2015, reports Argus Media. The energy and markets regulator CNMC said small power consumers should have their power tariffs calculated according to time-of-use prices.

From the end of 2015, the smart meter roll out will begin in earnest in Britain. By 2020, more than 53 million old-style gas and electricity meters will be replaced by new digital smart meters to more accurately measure and bill gas and electricity usage. The UK government predicts this will ‘revolutionise’ the energy market, whilst at the same time cut the cost of energy bills and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.